Governor Chris Christie has made a point of proving he can connect with communities that don't typically vote Republican. He aggressively courted New Jersey Democrats during his 2013 re-election campaign, advertised on Spanish-language media and carried the Hispanic vote by 51 percent. 

He has also supported policies important to Latinos that distinguish him from other Republican politicians nationally. 

At the start of 2014, he signed the New Jersey Dream Act, which allows students who came to the US illegally to pay in-state tuition to public universities. And when he traveled to Mexico, he visited the city of Puebla because Passaic, N.J., has  tens of thousands of residents whose families are from there.

During the festival of our Lady of Guadalupe, the town of Passaic may be as close as you can get to experiencing Puebla without leaving the Garden State. Multiple celebrations crisscross Passaic, and residents there say they want to maintain strong connections to their home culture,  but they also really want to stay.

David Galvez, who has lived in the US illegally since age 16, found he couldn’t afford to attend college when he graduated from high school, several years ago.

“I tried to go to NJIT [New Jersey Institute of Technology] because I’m studying electronic engineering. But that wouldn’t work at all,” says Galvez, now in his early 20s.

While today he’d be eligible for in-state tuition, the governor vetoed a second measure that would have made Dreamers eligible for tuition grants and assistance.

This didn’t hurt Stephanie Bello who was born in Paterson and is a US citizen but she became an activist for her peers who were affected

“It was a victory,” she says of the signing of the Dream Act, “because we actually got to make a step forward but we were really disappointed it was such a partial thing."

Christie’s compromise did gain him credibility among many in the Latino community.

“I'm more about getting something done so I was impressed that he got it done when other governors have failed to do so,” said Carlos Medina, Chairman of New Jersey’s Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. 

Medina attended the ceremonial signing of the Dream Act, held in the high school where he’d grown up in Union City. He said he thinks the Christie administration has also been proactive in reaching out to the Hispanic business community.

“I think they like his no-nonsense approach. I know some things can be controversial but Jerseyans have a certain style and he exemplifies some of that.”

Medina and other Hispanic leaders also talk about the fact that Christie appointed a second Latino to the board of Rutgers University, a well-respected Puerto Rican named Martin Pérez. But Christie’s record in New Jersey also has detractors.

The head of the Latino Action Network, Frank Argote-Freyere, says many of the state’s Hispanics are working poor or lower middle class, and they’ve fared badly under the Governor.

“There have been so many other actions that have been detrimental and they're not as sexy, they're not as easy to understand -- affordable housing, education, integration in terms of education, how education is funded and on and on,” Argote-Freyere said.

On controversial national issues of importance to Hispanic voters, Christie has been hard to pin down. For example, the Governor was silent for several days after the Obama administration announced an opening of diplomatic relations with Cuba.

But after the shooting in New York that left two police officers dead, he began calling for the President to demand Cuba return Joanne Chesimard (who changed her name to Assata Shakur), who fled there in 1979 after she was convicted of killing a New Jersey police officer.

During Christie's trade mission to Mexico, he avoided making any statements on American immigration policy his entire trip, telling reporters “I won’t have anything to say on immigration unless and until I become a candidate for President of the United States.”

Lionel Sosa, a communications strategist who consulted on seven Republican presidential campaigns, suggests there’s no gain for Christie in taking an early position. He needs to win over Republican primary voters who are more conservative. But the governor also knows Republicans need support from moderates to win nationally.

If Christie were to win the primary, Sosa predicts he would then move to a stance on immigration reform closer to the political center. 

“Immigration reform is a hot potato," Sosa said  "It’s very emotional and people have all kinds of ideas around it."